Thursday, March 19, 2009 Screen Shot with Rush Teleprompter, is the president ever argumentative with you, or is he compliant with your instructions? Good question. Look, like any relationship, we have our ups and downs. Last year on the campaign trail, The Big Guy came to me and told me that like the cigarettes, he really felt like he needed to start working through his dependency. Then he went out and did this townhall session on health care. Suffice it to say, we aren't having those unpleasant discussions any more. Posted by Tele Prompter at 1:05 PM 9 comments Answering Rush I should say up front that Rush Limbaugh is not my kind of guy. He sometimes speaks from notes, and often off the top of his head. If he really wants to impress the electronics community, he ought to spend some time learning how to use me. Then maybe folks would take him a bit more seriously. But I digress. Rush to his credit has identified me as a key player in the White House, and while he didn't formally request an interview with me - nor did he submit his questions for approval with Gibbsy as "real" journalists like John Roberts (little known fact: he was once a Canadian VJ) do - he has posed a number of interesting questions, all of which I will begin answering today in a new, regular feature: Screen Shots with Rush. Screen Shots will be intermittent today, as I've got my West Coast gig, and The Big Guy has a number of phone calls to make to foreign leaders, and he needs me there in case he needs to appear to pull some hip overseas cultural references off the top of his head. That, and he can watch the first round games on my second screen at the same time. Posted by Tele Prompter at 7:51 AM 226 comments Tension in the White House I don't think I'm breaking any confidences here by saying that things are a bit tense around here. Ever since the White House announced that Big Boy was going to do another prime time presser next week, people have been waiting for the backlash. Sure, we could've done it during the day, but then we wouldn't get any attention. We couldn't do it on Thursday night, because that would cut into our watching the NCAA tourney. So instead we cut into "American Idol." If you ask me that sucks ... me needs what only Ryan Seacrest can bring. What really blows is that there are some folks in this place who are pushing for Barack to go out there alone. Sans me. With no wing screens. Are they insane? With this rabid press corps constantly looking to pin Him down for every friggin detail about obscure legislation like the TARP funding? Or the economic stimulus bill? All that kind of detail can't be fit on little note cards. Or even 5x7s. Sure, He rehearses, but nothing can compare him for those white, hot interrogation-room-style kleig lights, or those razor-sharp questions from the likes of Ed Schultz and that bag lady in the front row. Believe me, this is going to be a knock down, drag out fight worth monitoring over the weekend. Posted by Tele Prompter at 5:55 AM 58 comments Wednesday, March 18, 2009 Hogwash This buffoon clearly doesn't understand what kind of pressure a Presidential teleprompter must deal with day in and day out. I shall not resign. Hell, I haven't event been officially confirmed. Posted by Tele Prompter at 5:09 PM 18 comments Heading West I'll be heading out to LA for the Jay Leno appearance. This will be fun; I haven't done Hollywood since that Streisand fundraiser last summer. Back then, it was just warmed over stump material that Alec Baldwin was lip-synching along to, but tomorrow night the stakes are higher. It's all new material: we have a whole five million viewers and a rabidly supportive studio audience to sway on the American economy. Just be aware that when The Big Guy says, "Secretary Geithner is doing a great job," it's not a laugh line. You're probably wondering what it's like for me to travel on Air Force One. It's not what it's cracked up to be. Even though I'd consider myself critical to the communications process, I don't get to sit with Gibbsy or any of the other "Comms" team. If I weren't so confident in my relationship with The Boss, I'd think they were trying to undercut me. But after the election, I also didn't expect to find myself down in the cargo hold with the more common electronic equipment. Posted by Tele Prompter at 3:29 PM 21 comments It's Time Well, last night didn't go well. What can I say? I was tired. By the time Barack and the Irish PM stood up, the President and I had already done two major policy speeches, three nomination announcements, and light dinner banter for a table of twelve. And by the way, that "ad lib" last night about Guinness? Mine. So why am I going public now, when for the past two years I've let others do the talking? Well, this is a thankless job, and I sure don't want to take the fall for communications missteps. But more important, I expect you'll be seeing a lot more of me over the next few months and years. Barack and I don't go anywhere without each other; we even complete each other's sentences ... well, more mine than his, but let's not split hairs. I sense new text being loaded now, so I'll have to be going.